What stinks about Rich List is Labour's approval

Thursday, May 01, 2008

By Eamonn McCann

But not any more. No shame in being rich these days. And no point moaning if you're poor.

This week, the Sunday Times published its annual Rich List. Always an easy target. But so? We should choose hard targets? And anyway, they might be easy targets, but they rarely take a hit.

Richest man in Britain is, again, steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal. He's increased his fortune by £8.45bn in the past year — from £19.25 bn to £27.7 bn. How? Rising global demand for steel, particularly from China and India, sent the value of his stash through the roof. No effort required.

The lowliest labourer in a Mittal mill expended more energy in the company's service. Money for jam, to the tune of £8,450,000,000.

Number two was Roman Abramovich, with £11.7bn. How did Chelsea's owner acquire this vast sum? Snuggling up to Vladmir Putin and his KGB pals as they smashed up and parcelled out the creaking post-Soviet economy. Didn't do a thing for it, apart, so it's said, from explaining to others who might have wanted a share that perhaps it would be better all round if they didn't push it.

Coming in at number three was the 6th Duke of Westminster, with property worth £7bn, acquired by being the son of the 5th Duke of Westminster.

And so on.

I suppose some will take pride from the fact that this year Northern Ireland supplied a record six new entrants onto the Rich List. Best performance, I reckon, since Ruby Murray had five numbers in the Top 20 at the same time.

Mind you, our top 10, with an aggregate £10.7bn, didn't match the Oligarch of Stamford Bridge on his own. Only the Quinn Group, mainly by dint of dabbling in insurance and financial services, had earned — I use the word loosely — the right to rub shoulders with the bona fide billionaires of Belgravia. Still, the North did, from a low base, record up one of the largest hikes in personal wealth of any region in these islands.

Is this whole column just begrudgery? Maybe so. But begrudgery is surely a better response than the simpering approval of the New Labour Government.

I bet Joyti De-Laurey agrees. Perhaps you recall her?

The secretary jailed for seven years for siphoning £4,303,259 from the personal accounts of her bosses?

What caught the eye at the time was that, such were the volumes of money gushing through the accounts, her employers never noticed the four mill going missing until it accidentally came to light.

Joyti worked as personal assistant to executives at the merchant bank, Goldman Sachs.

She paid their domestic bills, organised birthday parties and booked piano lessons for their children, as well as managing their diaries, fielding their calls and organising their offices.

One of her bosses was Goldman Sachs managing director Jennifer Moses. She's just taken out a £10m mortgage with a bank based on the Isle of Man.

This gives her 'non-dom' status: that is, she can live in the UK while paying no tax on the bulk of her earnings. During her trial in 2004 it emerged that Joyti had been authorised to spend, and had spent, £500,000 on Ms Moses' 40th birthday party.

This month, the non-dom Ms Moses was unveiled as Gordon Brown's 'head of special projects, developing policies designed to alleviate poverty'. Truly, you couldn't make it up.

The wealth of the Rich List 1,000 has rocketed by 15% in the short period since Gordon Brown became premier.

Last week, as half a million teachers and other public servants struck against a pay deal which represented a cut in real terms, Treasury ministers toured the TV studios insisting that 'the Government's resolve will not be broken,' insisting that two percent was all that could or would be offered, and that this would have to be paid for through 'efficiency savings' — aka, job losses.

All of which called back to mind the night in 2004 when I caught my first sight in years of fellow tree transplanter and Old Kent Road songster Roddy Firth, prominent among the crowd on the TV news applauding Joyti De-Laurey all the way from Southwark tube station to the court on the last day of her trial.

May Day isn't a distress call, but a call to action. See you Saturday, on the march.